


The Catherine Wheel

by Hambone



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Assassination, Biting, Hate Sex, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mildly Dubious Consent, Spark Bond, Spark Sex, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Violent Sex, hints of other pairings, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:51:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2700260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hambone/pseuds/Hambone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shockwave makes a decision to save his own plating and Ultra Magnus refuses to be broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A commission for abucketofprotons on my Tumblr! Commissions are still open! Enjoy~!

“It was the only way to save myself. You must understand that.”

Ultra Magnus stared at him through the bars of light and did not know how to respond. He did his best not to remove his hand from the hammer, to reach for his chest where the turbulence of two now swirled.

“I saved your spark as well,” said Shockwave, tone unapologetic and blank as his face, “you live by my hand just as easily as you could have died by it.”

“You do realize I intend to make this situation as miserable for you as you deserve, don’t you?”

The red optic turned slightly, pupil dilating curiously.

“Then you will suffer alongside me.”

When he had first awoken in the medical ward, discovering this new horror inside himself, Ultra Magnus had tried to reason that perhaps it would at least allow them to better understand the Decepticon, that Shockwave, the spy, the enigma, would unfold like a story before him, but instead he had found himself filled only by a limp fog, the emotions Shockwave produced strange and obfuscated. Even now, while there was no fear apparent, something dark and wet crept between them, the newly forged spark bond throbbing like a fresh wound.

He thought of the bodies of his younger cadets just a few rooms away, bots who had never been intended to see real battle. Death, torture, rust…

“If that’s what it takes,” he said.

* * *

 

The advisors didn’t like his decision, but they were only advisors for a reason. The council did not know, and the Guard would not know, because a weakness, a scandal like this, was not information for the general public. Shockwave was stripped of his weapons, his transformation cog, much of his power by means of selective surgeries and low grade energon – essentially everything that made him Decepticon. They could not be apart for too long, and Ultra Magnus visiting the prisons so often would be suspicious no matter what the situation, so accommodations had to be made. His own personal prison was erected in the Magnus’s quarters, bars made of nothing more than elaborate security systems and violent, invasive implants.

Shockwave was proud. That did not take a spark bond to see. It worried Ultra Magnus to feel its clear blade cut stronger and stronger as Shockwave martyred himself with each downgrade.

His guards were beside themselves with worry, because he still would not allow them into his personal chambers, even with the monster there, but there was little Shockwave could do now but kill him and they both knew that would get him nowhere, if he even survived the severing. Now they had nothing but one another in the darker hours, and Ultra Magnus understood as he had before the way that Decepticons were said to drive a mech insane.

The silence between them stretched so deep.

“Do you intend to stare at me all off cycle?”

Shockwave did not blink, as though he could; slowly, he turned his helm to the side in a way that mimed curiosity, though no such emotion bounced through the bond.

“What would you have me do instead?”

A response tailored to annoy but not offend. He was a prisoner no more than a week and he had already mastered the loopholes of the shock collar he wore. There was no malice in his tone, no speed in his actions, no attempt to incite anger or violence and therefore no means for punishment, even if he was intentionally bothersome. Ultra Magnus did his best to shake it off.

“Look at something else.”

Though he was slow and careful in his movements, there would always be the hidden promise of attack in him, and Ultra Magnus knew Shockwave felt his discomfort’s echo. He let the question die in the air before responding to it, slow but not by accident.

“As you wish.”

He turned to the dark wall and his optic powered down. He always sat in one corner or the other, never moving. Ultra Magnus tried to pretend he wasn’t watching him still as he sat down to read, neck high, back straight, and afraid.

* * *

 

When he awoke he was ventilating too quickly for his old frame, fans sticking in the left lower compartment of his chest cavity. He jolted upright, banging on his chest with a single fist and coughing as the mechanism stuttered to restart. Shockwave stood by the sealed over window.

Ultra Magnus started again, and then his backup generator shot a bolt of extra power into the fan system and rebooted the entire mechanism reset, leaving him heaving a bit as he cooled down. He gave Shockwave a tired look as he calmed himself.

“Don’t you ever recharge?”

“You seemed to be in distress.”

In the darkness he was nothing more than a fait flicker of bio lighting and bulk, and Ultra Magnus sent the command to raise the lights before even considering more. Shockwave was not permitted a berth but had never shown any mind for it. Ultra Magnus has not so much as seen him recline in a chair.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

He tugged the cover on the padding straight and tucked it down better, not that it needed it, fiddling just to distract himself.

“Were you dreaming of him again?”

Ultra Magnus stopped.

“Excuse me?”

Shockwave shifted, just barely, into a more relaxed pose, and they both felt the way his smugness oozed through the bond with dark intent. Ultra Magnus hated him.

“Your orange Prime, Rodimus. The one afflicted with cosmic rust. You dream of him often, and it seems to cause you… distress.”

“How do you know that?”

He did not mean to show as much open shock as he did, but there would have been no hiding it anyhow. Without moving from his spot, Shockwave filled the room with his presence.

“You do remember our predicament, do you not?”

His claws clicked together softly.

“I see your dreams.”

Bristling, Ultra Magnus sat up straighter, still shaken from his sleep but prepared to defend, if nothing else, his honor.

“Perhaps this is a concept foreign to you Decepticon brutes, but there are some privacies you do not invade.”

“There is no privacy between us.”

“I am aware,” Ultra Magnus grit, “there was a reason why spark bonding was banned for six million stellar cycles. It is dangerous.”

“To meld two beings into one.”

Shockwave hummed as though thinking.

“Not the healthiest definition of coupling by your standards, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

He did not want to talk about this. He did not ever want to talk to this creature. He had taken everything he could away from Shockwave, but there was no punishment like the situation he had been thrust into and for that they both suffered.

He dimmed the lights again but did not power down. He was not sure he could muster the coding sequence for recharge right now, not knowing what Shockwave knew.

“Why do I never see your dreams?”

Shockwave’s red optic peeled through the darkness.

“Because I do not dream.”

“Surely you do.”

He was tired, but he wanted to speak. Feelings on the outside were what he chose to show and he preferred that to the alternative, dragged from within him by the twirling dampness of Shockwave’s spark. How someone could be so cold inside he could not imagine, and to touch it made him ache with sorrow. He did not know if the feeling was his own.

“No.”

“Surely, you have regrets. You have loves. You cannot exist as a being of pure hate. That would be against nature, against Primus.”

He rolled to look at the red silhouette in the darkness, angry.

“ _Surely_ you felt something when you watched your leader die.”

Shockwave bowed his helm low but still watched, easing onto the ground to sit on his calves.

“Feelings are a reality. Dreams are nonsense. I have no use for them and I never have.”

“And so you never think back on your past? On the damage you’ve done?”

He was pushing it but there was little consequence possible. Shockwave felt his malice and did not rebuff it quite quick enough.

“Is there no one here you even remotely regret betraying?”

“Regret is a,” he stumbled, “a pointless emotion,” but it was too late, and Ultra Magnus saw, more vividly than anything before his optics, the briefest shine of blue.

They looked at one another.

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

Shockwave was across the room in nano-kliks, on the berth, on him, a terrifying static between them. Ultra Magnus turned and swung at him, landing a good, solid punch right below the bulb of miniature filaments that made up his optic, knocking Shockwave’s helm back but not his enormous frame. His clawed hands framed Ultra Magnus’s helm, chest to chest, holding him down with his great weight and every fighting instinct in him blew bright like a lit fuse. Shockwave turned his helm, narrowly dodging an attempted head-butt, and crossed his knees in tight to press the thick padding over his arms, slowing the kinetic force between them to a sluggish crawl.

“What are you doing!”

“You invade me!” Shockwave’s level voice trembled with rage, “ _you_ invade _me!_ I will not have that!”

His claws flicked up, scoring thin lines in the Magnus’s side and he snarled as the primal instinct to survive took hold. This time when Ultra Magnus leaned in his crest hit home against Shockwave’s cheek, teeth taking hold of the thick, leathery mesh of his throat in a wild bite. Shockwave grunted loudly, trying to fit his unwieldy digits between them to hold back Ultra Magnus’s hands but only managing to capture one, the other beating useless rhythm against his shoulder tread.

 He kicked up with one knee, jamming it hard into Shockwave’s inner thigh. It wasn’t enough to dislodge him but it did make the Decepticon grunt in pain again, and he pulled back, nearly tearing a wad of his own protometal off in Ultra Magnus’s mouth as his teeth clamped harder. Ultra Magnus used the opportunity to surge upwards on his elbows, grabbing at the canisters on Shockwave’s hips, and Shockwave pulled back again, straddling his legs with a weight large enough to crush. He leaned in to bite at the edges of his chest, the scar over what had once been the Decepticon brand, and Shockwave rocked his hips down.

There was a shift between them, tangible and yet too quick to counter. Ultra Magnus’s hands left the canisters to slide up Shockwave’s back and over his curving aft, Shockwave himself pushing into the touch, great hands encircling Ultra Magnus from behind and holding him close as he raised his chest to accommodate more bites. Their sparks called for one another, the proximity and flow of emotion synching for the first time, pulling them together like no other force in existence. Shockwave’s long neck seemed to lengthen further, allowing him to curl his helm down behind Ultra Magnus’s neck and nuzzle against him in the softest of mouthless kisses.

“What are we,” Ultra Magnus tried, and failed, to catch himself. Shockwave was enormous, even with Ultra Magnus’s wildly upgraded body, and enveloped him almost completely.

“Do not speak.”

Shockwave rubbed their hips together, hissing like wind through a drain pipe. Ultra Magnus wanted to punch his vocalizer shut, or maybe kiss it, but without a mouth there was little more he could do than thrust his hips upward, bite harder, and clench his fingers down into Shockwave’s ancient plating as if he could muster the strength to crumple it between his palms. It was a surprise to both of them when Shockwave caved to his desires first, withdrawing his panel and letting the slickness of his valve crush wet against Ultra Magnus’s thigh, his spike as thick and barbed as a tool of torture pushing between their stomachs.

Ultra Magnus reached down and wrapped his fingers around Shockwave’s girth, dragging his palm along the ridges hard enough to peel wax from his plating, and Shockwave bucked freely, optic bright as it watched him pump. His own spike pushed up next to Shockwave’s, not as sharp or as large but wide and heavy, and when he clutched them together they both groaned. It hurt, though, to try and stroke them at the same time, Shockwave’s cord being so violent in make that he wondered if it had truly been forged that way or if he had created its wicked image for some darker purpose. His unspoken question was answered with a wave of apathy across the bond, and in a callback to his anger he reached up and yanked at one of the Con’s sensory antenna, making him moan and shiver.

“You like that, don’t you?” he said, feeling unexpectedly mean, “you enjoy being cut to nothing and tugged around on a leash.”

It was a juvenile attempt to spite his unwanted partner, but Shockwave responded to it anyways, hips jumping. He made no attempt to respond, and Ultra Magnus pressed on, “was his how your fellow Decepticons treated you?”

“Quiet,” Shockwave mumbled, rubbing his valve rhythmically across Magnus’s thigh. He was wet, although not much. Ultra Magnus suspected that was normal for a bot of his age. He knew time’s ravages well himself.

“I’m sure they did, though, didn’t they? Savages, war machines like you, tearing at each other’s throats even in intimacy, and you got off on it.”

Dirty talk had never been something Ultra Magnus much appreciated, but this was different; he spoke with conviction, not disgust or sensuality but with a need to distance himself from the spark that beat beside his.

“Did Megatron touch you this roughly?”

Shockwave slammed him back into the berth, bright against the backdrop of spongey night. Ultra Magnus yelled in anger again, reaching up with blind hands, but the sudden drop of Shockwave’s valve over the head of his spike froze him solid.

“ _Do not speak of my cause as though it were the dream of barbarians_ ,” Shockwave said, so quietly and so sharply that Ultra Magnus felt as though his throat had been cut. Shockwave lowered himself in one swift motion, taking him more easily than a partner had since before his final upgrade. He threw his helm back into the berth pad, moaning loudly. There was no time for adjustments, and none was needed. The pace Shockwave set riding him was brutal, but both of them ached for more. His hands, which had been looking for a wound to agitate, instead found Shockwave’s hips and again latched on, helping to guide him up and down.

At some point, though he could not quite tell when because their sensations were beginning to blend and his vision was unclear, he managed to raise his head and watch the clean black folds swallow his spike. Shockwave made very little sound beside the whisper of his heaving vents, but he watched Ultra Magnus’s face with an intensity that was frightening. His claws braced against the berth pad were so suddenly huge, and Ultra Magnus wondered, not for the first time, who had even conceived a design such as his. To be intertwined with someone spark in spark was different from any kind of connection he had experienced before, and he was left in the dark for it much of the time, flooded with feelings and slips of memory that were not his own and did not seem to fit into any sort of understandable narrative. He had expected it would at least allow him to know of any relevant Decepticon information, but so far it seemed neither of them was able to concretely grasp anything but the essence of the other.

“B-by the Allspark…” he muttered, tracing his hands up Shockwave’s waist as he gyrated slowly, feeling the heavy mechanics through the mesh as it flexed and released. He had not interfaced in a long time, but Shockwave, despite being indefinitely older, seemed to be without limit in his energies. His vents breathed heat, and it crowded Ultra Magnus’s processor, making the room swim red.

“By nothing.”

Shockwave rolled his calipers down in a clamp that made his spike throb, and he squeezed until the metal of the Decepticon’s hips did buckle. He gasped and Ultra Magnus took the opportunity to get the upper servo, keeping his hold good and thrusting powerfully upwards. His spike was clearly not the largest thing Shockwave had ever taken but when their hips slammed together so hard paint began to transfer the Con still vibrated with pleasure, helm rolling back on his shoulders, his long neck sloping in a way Magnus hated to call beautiful. He revisited one of the bite marks he had made earlier, tearing at the mesh until he felt caliper tubing snap between his teeth, a hot rush of the acrid flavor of processed energon sweet on his tongue.

The meager amount of lubrication Shockwave had managed to produce was not quite enough, and he could feel the cling of his rubbery valve grow tighter as the friction increased. It was slightly uncomfortable for him too, but Ultra Magnus took a pleasure in it he made no effort to hide, and Shockwave continued to ride him raw without complaint. He was very close, the tightness in his lower belly spreading to his extremities, making his arms shake as they forced Shockwave down on his spike again and again.

It was in this moment he remembered the inciting incident, the flash of blue he had seen in Shockwave’s optic, the response to his own questions of affection. Shockwave seemed to sense it in him and could not help but clench harder, hips rolling, and Ultra Magnus realized exactly what he was seeing.

“That’s-”

Shockwave overloaded, back arching, a slender curve that made his bulky shoulders look strange and statuesque. His vocalizer was silent but Ultra Magnus could feel the mix of everything filter into his own chest, pleasure heightened as his own valve became Shockwave’s for a moment, his own spike inside himself.

He let himself crash into Shockwave’s thighs, one final pump of his spike all it took before his transfluid was spilling in long, disjointed bursts into the Decepticon’s waiting heat, the ravages of Shockwave’s continuing ecstasy making him clench to milk him for all he was worth. In some kind of odd sympathy, Ultra Magnus used the last bit of his mental capacity before crashing back into the berth to swipe his thumb over Shockwave’s nub, just twice, finally wrenching a soft “oh!” from his throat.

They collapsed. Shockwave had the decency to move so that his frame would not crush the Magnus, rolling onto his side to heave silent breaths as his frame pinged and cooled. Ultra Magnus himself took longer to recover, but he did not care. The safety he had felt in his own mortality being linked to Shockwave’s had been replaced by a much calmer shield born of closeness, not because he at all liked Shockwave but because he knew him now. Because he knew that, for all his armor, Shockwave was weak.

“That was cruel.”

Shockwave spoke as if reading his thoughts. Perhaps he was. Ultra Magnus did not care to try closing off the bond, keeping his optics offline as his systems grew again cold and quiet.

“What was?”

A claw tip traced at his Autobrand, not threateningly.

“To use that name against me.”

“You shouldn’t have opened yourself to attack then.”

He managed to flicker on his visual systems in the low light, giving the red orb beside him a glance.

“Besides, you implied I had similar interests myself earlier. A nail for a nail.”

Shockwave looked at him.

“I was made for breaking your system. You have no excuse.”

“Oh,” Ultra Magnus pushed at his face with one hand, making the Decepticon cling to the sheets to stay steady, “shut up.”

He hated Shockwave, but the threat had been neutralized. Shockwave continued to lie beside him, systems regulating, and he realized the Decepticon was going into recharge, on his berth no less. The lubricant and transfluid on his thighs was beginning to dry. With little care for anything, old as he was, Ultra Magnus let himself relax. He had done worse things for his planet, he supposed.


	2. Temper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional chapter by commission.

Ultra Magnus was not often a partygoer, but his absence at the End of Cycle Dance was noticed.

“People are worried.”

Botanica, kindest of the Council members, had been sent to inform him. He wondered if the choice in messenger was meant to reflect some deeper meaning.

“Of course, what has happened here is only known to the most elite, I assure you, but even they are beginning to wonder if Shockwave’s… attack on you has left you more weakened than you admit.”

He covered his face with a hand for a moment, sighing until the rust rattled in his vents. They didn’t know anything, really, only that he had been attacked, but he appreciated her attempt at showing discretion.  

“I am not weakened,” he said, tired, “but I have new responsibilities to attend to.”

“Mm.”

She did not sound convinced, but at least she was sympathetic.

“Look,” he tried, “I will not be bogged down by this forever.”

“I do hope.”

She gave him a meaningful look, which he did not meet her optics for, and left him alone in his office. Across the building, deep in his chambers, Shockwave pinged him a questioning sensation across their bond, and Ultra Magnus stared blankly down at his work.

* * *

 

“Do not bother me when I’m working,” he closed the door with his back to the Decepticon, “I have told you before.”

“I have a duty to keep my end of the bargain up as well. I sensed distress, so I attempted to help you relive it. I am just as dead as you are if I fail to keep you well.”

He did not look, but he could feel that Shockwave was lounged on the berth, like a Predacon in repose. As he had gotten more accustomed to their bond he found himself seeing, yet not visually, the things Shockwave was doing or thinking about from time to time, like shadows on the wall or reflections in unquiet water. Now he was shifting up onto his elbows, claws raking across the silky berth pad, the picture of danger and subtle eroticism. His spark jumped happily in his chest but Ultra Magnus drowned its mirth beneath his oppressive resolve.

“You have no way to save me if I am attacked,” he finally did turn, seeing the Decepticon as he had predicted, “So it is a pointless effort. Just refrain from touching or nagging or whatever else you may feel like doing when I’m away. I have no desire to feel you any more than I already have to.”

Shockwave shifted on the berth, not really aiming to get up but to alert Ultra Magnus to the presence of his body, stretched out and cool. Ultra Magnus curled his lip.

“Not now. I have work to finish.”

“Then why are you here?”

He didn’t answer, moving to his desk and sitting down hard enough to scrape the chair legs painfully into the floor. Behind him, Shockwave watched, and he tried to pretend he was still able to hide what he was doing by hunching his shoulders, as futile as it was.

* * *

 

It was not as though his work was not still rewarding. Ultra Magnus loved his people, and his planetary commonwealth. He had been the Magnus for a long, long time, and he knew the position well. Shockwave simply made things harder.

He hadn’t fully been healed because there was little that could be done for some of his parts without full frame replacement or protoform limb attachment, and his spark was too old and too weak to support him through that. It was not a pleasant conversation to have, and the young medic was embarrassed and clearly nervous despite his success in keeping Ultra Magnus alive when many had thought him already offline. His jaw was stiff, his legs sore when he stood for too long. His spine ached where Shockwave had torn him nearly in half.

To have others see how badly the battle had hurt him was just as painful, even if his unholy bonding went as a secret from all but his physician and the close bodyguard pack that surrounded him at all times when away from his office or quarters. They hadn’t been enough then and they wouldn’t be enough now, and he knew it, but appearance meant more than anything these days, when being Magnus was a title and not the name of a hero stained with energon and battle scars. He could still hear the disappointed hatred in Sentinel Prime’s voice when he stepped down from his temporary stint as Magnus, but he had known for a while now that the mech, while good at his work, had no respect for his elders. It was only then that he realized how many others agreed.

Ultra Magnus wanted to be angry about it, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t going to say they were right to doubt him, but he had to admit he had failed here, nearly fatally. Shockwave was a monster, and he’d allowed himself to be trapped.

However, it was only when Rodimus Prime returned from the medical bay for active duty that the reality fully set in. he moved more slowly, smiled more weakly than before.  He had already had the power to make Ultra Magnus ache inside, but now he had the silent heroic air about him that made every twitch of his fingers a tragedy. To be fair, there wasn’t much for him or any of the other Primes and agents to do at this point, because everything had been handled already by the crew who fell to Earth. The Autotroopers had whatever little crime happened on the streets under lock, and most of the Autobots sent to distant reaches of the galaxy had come home upon hearing the news of Megatron’s capture.

But Rodimus was not concerned with that. He had come straight to Ultra Magnus’s office after returning to his post, worry etched in along the deep red scars of the cosmic rust. Ultra Magnus had not been expecting to see him; in fact, he had been actively hoping he wouldn’t. Shockwave was not simply perceptive – he _knew_ everything. He couldn’t deal with having that inside him when he was with Rodimus, not when Rodimus mean so much to him. Not when what he meant was just as wrong as Shockwave had wanted.

“Thank the Allspark,” said Rodimus, overdramatic but only half joking, “I was worried you’d still be all patched up in the med bay.”

“Your concern is not warranted,” Ultra Magnus smiled kindly, “I’ve been quite well for a while now.”

“Scrap tongue. You look like something bitter Unicron spat out after chewing.”

“Watch your language.”

Rodimus laughed, rust still rasping in his throat, and sat down. The casual air of their banter made Ultra Magnus’s lips turn up at the corners, the closest they’d been to happiness in what felt like vorns. Rodimus was just as handsome even with his scars. As they dipped into another soft round of banter his optics shone against their dark stain.

It was then that the tapping began.

He didn’t think much of it, or at least tried not to. Rodimus leaned across the table, scratching absently at a patch of rust. It made a sound like dry fingers dipping into a bucket of bullets.

“It’s so weird,” he said, “coming back out that stupid white room and having everything be normal again. it’s like one klik we were training for a fight we never thought would come from real Cons, outliers, sure, but not Cons, and the next I’m downed and the next there’s nothing going on again. I feel like I’ve been t-boned in the processor.”

“I can only imagine.”

Shockwave’s claws tapped in the back of his chest, not there but feeling as real as his own hands gripping the edge of the desk. Offering a small grin, teeth un-aligned and awkwardly colored, Rodimus spread his palms wide.

“What, you never got put out of commission during a big battle?”

“Of course I did,” Ultra Magnus watched his fingers fold, “but it was very different back then. This was a series of strategically planned assaults; when I was nearing the end of my service, it was just chaos.”

“Well,” he mumbled, “it’s over now, isn’t it?”

“I do hope so.”

He felt inexplicably guilty for not having a more solid answer.  Rodimus didn’t care, but he was so caught up in his own self consideration, with trying to suppress the taps grating louder and louder inside his chest, that he was oblivious to the way the Prime was leaning over the table until he shuttered his optics and suddenly they were face to face.

“For a nano-klik, I thought I was going to die.”

Rodimus’s optics were heavy lidded, and his words brushed close and hot. There was something unbearably sad about them but Ultra Magnus was embarrassed to realize he only cared about their sudden proximity. Rodimus was half crawled onto the desk.

“We all did.”

“I know but,” he shifted a knee up, scattering a neat pile of data pads. Ultra Magnus should have been angry, but he was frozen.

“I know but I just felt… perspective, I guess. A lot of things cleared up for me.”

Ultra Magnus was too old not to know where this was going. He wanted to move, backwards, perhaps, to escape the oncoming breach of every ethics rule he was aware of, but there was no denying the slice of his processor trying to force him forward. Rodimus’s lips held the thin light in beautiful angles, scars red and gold.

_My, my, my,_ Shockwave tutted, _at least when I fragged your young agents I pretended to be discreet about it._

 He threw himself back, hard, tipping over the desk chair as he leapt to his feet. Rodimus, unbalanced and confused, slid back into his chair.

“I-I’m sorry, Commander.”

He was so formal. It broke Ultra Magnus’s spark.

“No, I shouldn’t have- I mean, it wasn’t you.”

“I should probably just… I should just leave.”

“You don’t have to. It’s not, well. Things are complicated right now.”

“I know. Everything is complicated.”

“That’s not what I meant-!”

“I’m sorry.”

Rodimus left, and Ultra Magnus stared at the door.

* * *

 

_“You Decepticon monster!”_

Shockwave did not attempt to escape when Ultra Magnus threw his hands around his throat and that only made him angrier.

_“You rotten slag heap! You slime! Quintesson bate!”_

“Such words.”

Shockwave did not even sound impressed, much less upset, even as his thick trunk of a neck was compressed. Ultra Magnus snarled, joints creaking with age. Shockwave had already been in the berth room, because he was never far from it, and Ultra Magnus pushed him back until his knees buckled and they fell onto the pillows.

“I told you never to bother me in my office!”

“You were running rather hot.”

His red optic flickered in something akin to playfulness.

“I thought I would help you save face among your subordinates.”

“No you didn’t!”

He beat Shockwave’s helm back into the headboard until the metal split and the sharp angle of his helm skidded nasty gashes into the wall. Shockwave grunted satisfyingly, but not enough.

“You don’t care about my face or my reputation! You don’t care about my Primes!”

“I’ve had your Primes.”

_Had_. He said the word with an awful drawl, the kind of lascivious intone that made Ultra Magnus’s fluids boil.

“How dare you say that to me!”

He slammed a fist into Shockwave’s optic and it cracked, but still his claws lay at his sides, infuriatingly calm. His own weakness felt like the greatest insult of all.

“What, did I never tell you?”

His helm cocked slowly.

“I’ve had many of your agents. In fact,” his pupil sharpened to a slit, “Rodimus himself quite enjoyed decorating my sheets.”

“Liar!”

“I wish,” said Shockwave, “He was terrible.”

In a flash they both saw Rodimus, scarless, helm thrown back in ecstasy, mouth open.

He laid into him, fists cracking under their own stress. Shockwave still did not fight but Ultra Magnus was beyond caring. Something snapped and there was pink everywhere, but he couldn’t tell which one of them it belonged to. Bits of red glass dug into his joints and cut his palms with wide smiles.

Shockwave rolled a bit to the side after a particularly hard strike pulled sparking wires from the bio lighting along his head and Ultra Magnus grabbed his antenna and yanked him over so hard the metal twisted. On his stomach, Shockwave gripped at the sheets, twisting the berth pad to fit his palms, and Ultra Magnus spat on him, ripping into tiny circuits lining his wide shoulders, and he realized that behind his panel he was hard.

_Is this how you’d treat Rodimus?_

Shockwave was still there, in the bond.

_I’m surprised you’ve not just humped him across your desk already. He does enjoy it when you smack him around a bit._

His spike slid out. He was angry that Shockwave retracted his panel at the first nudge, that he didn’t have to force himself on the Decepticon, that he was wet as he ever was and arched his hips back so that when he thrust they connected perfectly. Shockwave grunted again but not in pain and Ultra Magnus resumed his grip on his throat, gashing silver into the mesh as he squeezed. Shockwave was warm inside, never hot, like sinking into a good bath. He hated how soft and easy the pressure was against him. His calipers rolled in practiced patterns, undulating around him carefully while he tried to rut.

He wanted it to be fast and violent, but for every strike to the Decepticon’s frame he only got another pleasurable ripple. He should have known better. This had happened many times between them before. This time, however, it hurt. He bit at him, pulling again on his antennae just to hear him hiss and groan, but much of it was drowned out by the rocking of the berth as they slid together. Instead the slick pull of Shockwave’s valve rang loudest in his receptors.

_That’s right, be violent. Embrace your true nature._

He grabbed the back of Shockwave’s helm and slammed it into the wall in an attempt to shut him up, and the calipers around him tightened near painfully.

“Silence!”

_Fool._

He hiked Shockwave’s thin hips up and pounded into him like a beast. He was warm and wet, soft, giving in ways he never was without intent. They had tried playing games of wits before, but it was hard when you’re every thought and feeling was transmitted across the bond instantaneously. Instead they had settled into angry silences, an amiable attempt to coexist in the way they knew they would have to. Shockwave still dreamt of Megatron during the days, and Ultra Magnus still wondered if he were better off dead.

Shockwave bent his knees back, assisting their position, and Ultra Magnus’s spike suddenly slid in at such a good angle that he moaned openly. It was always a disarming sound, soft and cooing like a wounded animal, but it held such purity for someone so vile. Throwing one hand to his thigh, Ultra Magnus spread his legs wider, holding the pose and striking the same spot again and again. He rested his face into Shockwave’s back, shuttering his optics as he felt overload’s approach. This was not something he wanted to watch. Shockwave’s hold on him was strong and sharp, even now, and with no way to overcome it he found himself willingly succumbing to exhaustion.

It came as a surprise, more to himself than anything, when his dwindling anger triggered his overload. Shockwave hummed and tried forcing his hips back, but Ultra Magnus held strong in a final burst of self-preservative programming. While his fingers still aimed to dent the plating beneath them his movements shifted into something more like lovemaking, ever fast and strong but without the murderous intent. It was long yet unsatisfying, and he finally trembled to a halt, ventilating loudly.

Shockwave had not come and yet he said nothing. Ultra Magnus could feel him moving, too tired to look, but it took him nearly a klik to realize he was stroking himself quietly beneath them, claws clumsy over his own nub. His spike was still inside, softening, so when Shockwave did manage to work himself over he felt it, but it too seemed less passionate than pleasurable.

They nether moved nor collapsed together, frozen for a moment like statues. It was with great difficulty that Shockwave finally extracted himself from beneath Ultra Magnus’s bulk, letting him fall face first into the bloody pillows and turning over on his side. His optic had been completely smashed, blinding him. Ultra Magnus looked at him and felt the hollow victory of it tire him even more.

“Well, there’s that,” said Shockwave, voice as placid as ever.

“Don’t.”

“I’m allowed to speak freely. I’ve doomed us both, I believe my future deserves just as much mourning as yours.”

Ultra Magnus could say nothing, but his hatred was as clear as a red hot iron between them. Shockwave’s blind head rolled to the side as if it could see, looking at him with slick pink wires hanging grotesquely down his chin.

“If you want your young Prime, have him. I cannot muster the spark to care.”

“My _having him_ , as you put it, is just as bad as handing him off to you. It should never have been in the first place.”

“Then we are both miserable.”

There was no arguing with that.

* * *

 

Rodimus would not meet his eyes when they next saw each other in the halls. Ultra Magnus kept his helm held high and kept walking.


	3. Bullets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ultra Magnus tries to make a speech.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another installment, per commission! Enjoy~!

Things were bad. Rodimus was not yet well enough, perhaps never would be, to take what had originally been his bred position of Magnus, and Ultra was not going to last much longer. He was fatigued and ill often, too often, and his public appearances dwindled to almost nothing short of proof that he was still online.

Shockwave was a parasite on his spark. The pressure he created weighed heavier each cycle, and the worst of it was the growing realization that Shockwave felt the same way. The curse was that he was not only forever attached to his enemy, but that he was now intimately acquainted with the misery within it. He was infuriatingly exhausted by it all, and it reminded him of his true age. It was an unsettling realization. 

Of course Shockwave did not share with him the physical pain of age and exhaustion. Decepticons had been built to last; they did age, but more slowly than any Autobot could have expected. They didn’t rust or crumple as the hands of time pushed them down to Primus, but instead seemed to only become more intimidating, more lean and lethal. Shockwave in particular was old but strong, occasionally hinting his true age in confusing snippets of memory Ultra Magnus ran into as he recharged. Of course, some of them must have been fantasy as they were pure impossibilities. No creature lived now that had seen the start of the Destron movement.

He was frustrated by his lack of strength, his own inability to move on from what had happened.  There was much worry about the Autobot State, about how unprepared for war they had become when it was now clear the attack could come from anywhere. They needed strength, and he had none to give.

Still, a false face fooled many before.

He couldn’t make his public appearances as often nor as informally as before, so now it was largely limited to speeches. Still, speeches made the people relaxed, put the idea into their hard drives that the government was working on the issues at hand, whatever they may be. He put on his sternest voice and showed no pain.

With his chest proud and his optics dim he rea the cue cards as they were flashed ay him.

“The Autobot State is strong, stronger than it has ever been in light of our recent victory.”

The assistant smiled, a little nervous but still professional. In his periphery Magnus tried to ignore other bots finishing the application of shine on his shoulders, touching up his paint.

“Megatron, our greatest enemy, has been vanquished, and our peaceful commonwealth is free to pursue expansion once again.”

Another mech, muttering an apology under his breath, took the Magnus’s face in one hand, applying something cool beneath his optics.

“Without its warlord, Decepticon Space is no more. It is our space, our planetary union, given to a group undeserving, and now it is ours to reclaim.”

 Shockwave out of sight and out of mind, as much as he could be. Ultra Magnus did not feel him poking and worming around inside his chest, needy. He would not be a part of this.

The crowd was enormous, but that he was used to. He let them cheer, silent, gazing over the bright colors of the city below, though in his old age his sight made them difficult to discern. The roar was soothing, though, the normalcy of being Magnus, reassurance in his position. These bots would listen. Here, his power was endless. He raised his hands and the world fell into silence.

“Autobots,” he said, and that was as far as he got before the first bullet shattered the right side of his chest, streaking through at an angle and throwing a hole the size of a minibot’s fist through his armpit. He reeled back, the shock taking even his voice away, and then the second bolt hit him in the stomach, a more square shot that burrowed in deep but not all the way through, rupturing both his primary and secondary fuel tanks and a large portion of the tubing and wiring between them, shattering the filter guards like china.

There were screams now, so slightly different from the ones he had initially come out to. He slumped on to one knee, defensive protocol keeping him upright, though he was so low now that there was no chance he would locate the source easily. The balcony covered the majority of his body and he used to cover to grasp at his gut, holding in the spools of cable and tube that threatened to escape his body, and he vomited up whatever loose fluid had been forced upwards by the blast. Small teeth of plastic and metal shrapnel cut his throat. The guard around him was shouting, trying to pull him back inside, but he was too massive and they were on autopilot, trying to locate the source of the fire. Someone was shouting into their private communication line too close to his helm.

Something struck him on the left side pf his forehead and he went down.

* * *

 

The lights in the medical ward were either too bright or too dark. He didn’t really complain, though – couldn’t. He could not find it in himself to form words, to turn his head or shield his optics. The pin, if there was any, was very dim and distant, as though he were feeling it from outside his own body. Nurses came and went and he largely ignored them, fading in and out of consciousness as his systems flickered between understanding and not.

The only constant was Shockwave.

* * *

 

The first real moment of awareness Ultra Magnus had was, as he was told, for solar cycles since he was shot. It was a long time to have been out, but he had been under the influence of sedative code and took longer to recover than he once might have. They had been slowly stitching together the pieces that had been blown apart. His stomach was covered with a cooling sheet that he had removed briefly after waking, almost uninterested by the gaping hold inside himself. His shoulder was set stiff but otherwise not upsetting to observe.

What was was his face. The final shot had been the best aimed and had taken away a large portion of his jaw as well as his left audio receptor and steam release stack. What they didn’t say but he knew from experience was that it had left him a grinning skull for a while. He could feel the fresh protoform still hot on his face, slowly bonding with what material was already there and taking its form from his spark’s direction. It bothered him less to know what had been done then to know it had been seen by the masses, from far away and in a panic, but still seen. There was nothing to admit weakness more quickly than falling to an attack. It only proved that there were still enemies in their midst.

It was painful knowing he had been wrong. The defensive services had already caught the perpetrator, so he was told, and it was an Autobot, not even a Decepticon sympathizer but a full out Autobot. Someone who feared the upcoming age of expansion everyone had been speculating upon, someone who blamed his rule for a series of issues of state. He didn’t quite hear all the briefing, try as he might. The statement that would be released would, of course, not explain that, and the attacker would be labeled as a traitor brainwashed by Decepticon propaganda.

It did not save Ultra Magnus’s face, literally or figuratively.

Shockwave’s presence was the worst of it because it almost brought him comfort to have. He had grown so used to him that when he awoke and saw his looming blackness beside him there was nothing but the dim recognition sparked inside his chest. Shockwave leaned in, optic bright.

“You are too old to be taking such risks.”

Ultra Magnus could have laughed. He didn’t.

“To speak to my public should not be a risk.”

“Yet we are both faced with the truth here.”

There were doctors scurrying around his hulking mass nervously, attending to various machines. One appeared to be picking shrapnel from his gut. Ultra Magnus vaguely recognized them from his earlier injury, the one Shockwave himself has caused. They were the medical team who knew the weight of secrets, who had been briefed several times by his secret services of the truth in the meaning of the words ‘pain of death’.

Still, he waved them off with a look that clearly stated privacy was of the essence. There was nothing being done that couldn’t wait if he didn’t mind the pain, which, at this point, he could barely register. Shockwave did not watch them leave.

“Your wounds should not have been fatal, yet your spark nearly gave out. You know what that would have done to me.”

“You never allow me to forget, do you?”

Ultra Magnus turned to him more fully, shifting his tattered mass with the small ringing of a thousand shards of loose metal inside his frame.

“You made the decision to link us. You did this to yourself.”

Bowing his helm closer, Shockwave seemed to hesitate.

“I calculated poorly.”

“You calculated nothing – I felt your essence then and it was pure reactionary fear,” he huffed a wry laugh, “Like an animal.”

Shockwave rested his weight on the berth, slowly climbing into it. Ultra Magnus was large enough that he had his own sized medical equipment and the Decepticon would just almost fit were he in his place. As he wasn’t the construct groaned a bit but held solid at their combined weight.

“Why do you aim to harm me while lying in your own grave? Is it to mask your own fear?”

“I grow weary of these games.”

It was no lie; exhaustion ate at him more and more. He sometimes wondered if Shockwave’s cold spark really was devouring him whole.

“You think I am not weary of being trapped in your presence day and night? You think I am not weary of being faced with my own defeat and being forced to bear witness to its sneer?”

Ultra Magnus sighed as though the light were escaping his body.

“Suffer, Decepticon.”

Shockwave quivered with some unknown energy.

“You cannot die and leave me ruined. Not yet. I will not allow it.”

“You have already stopped the natural course of my life once. I don’t think Primus will grant you another chance.”

“I care not for this talk of chance and nature.”

Shockwave reached for Ultra Magnus, then seemed to think better of it and simply planted the claw beside him, framing his body. It was a pose they had assumed from time to time in private, mixing intimidation and seduction, and to see it here was almost humorous.

“We both know what has happened between us is the reaction to my panic and nothing more.”

“And so,” said Ultra Magnus, laying still and stiff, “what does it matter?”

Silence fell. Shockwave had no answer, and his spark boiled coldly between them. The pain was starting to return to Ultra Magnus’s gut and he turned away from his Decepticon counterpart, shuttering his optics. It wasn’t until Shockwave began to move again that he opened them.

“You will be gone long before my natural life span ends though, won’t you?”

Ultra Magnus could feel his despair. Oddly, the only image that came to his mind was that of Rodimus.

“Yes.”

It was an odd thing to come together. The bond spoke with words neither would ever have found in their throats. Shockwave moved over him, straddling his hips carefully. The exposed mouth of his stomach wound still gaped between them, and Shockwave now seemed to finally mind it, carefully situating his claws on either side of Ultra Magnus’s hips as he slowly began to grind down. He did not move back, too weak and too much in pain to even want to, but he allowed Shockwave to persist. He was already warm.

What a terrible thing it needed to seek comfort from the very thing slowly killing him. They had long ago ceased resisting the tug, too tired and too resigned to fight what they always knew would be a losing battle. The dull mauve shudder of Shockwave’s energy field pulled tight against his protoform but his spark sang the realities of his need to merge. After all, it had been a long and painful journey for them both. He only hated how Shockwave, even with loathing in his chest, could play the part of the lover so well.

He wasn’t going to be able to interface fully, if at all, in this state. He could barely even feel below his neck and what lay there was nothing good. Shockwave perhaps realized this, perhaps not, continuing to shift himself but without real intent. Ultra Magnus sighed back into it, letting his optics shut offline and lay like a corpse. Shockwave snaked his claws along the unresponsive plating in slow, easy traces, as if mapping out some invisible blueprint on his chassis. The movements were as careful and methodical as his thrusting and Ultra Magnus found it lulling him even deeper into the call of rest. Even when the great form above him moved down to ghost along his chest and throat he remained unresponsive. Warmth bathed him, as creeping as a rising tide, lifting the pain from his body and making him sigh gently.

“Closer…”

Shockwave’s voice seemed to come from his own throat. It was only then that he realized the warmth was real, real cold heat atop his chest, the call of Shockwave’s spark, bare, for the first time since they had become entrapped by Shockwave’s plan.

Without much thought, he opened his own chest to meet it.

It was more intense and yet simultaneously so much more natural of an experience than he had remembered, or perhaps that was what all first bonds were like and this was simply the aftereffect. He would never know the difference, he supposed. Bonding was as unique to each pair as the sparks that made up the link. Theirs was no different, in some ways. Something innocent and pure in nature belonging to two beings so far from innocence it was almost laughable.

Shockwave hummed into his audio receptor, suddenly so close. It was a good hum, the kind he usually produced when getting his way, but without much of the malice. As the laser core of his chest opened more to let the lights truly merge, Ultra Magnus felt a soft contentment well up between them. It was the satisfaction of death.

Arching above him, Shockwave seemed to sway like an antenna in the breeze, still pressing their hips together in slow motions, the thrum of his spark loud and deep. He involuntarily pushed a packet of data through their bond with very little real information in it other than moments that had brought similar emotional tides to ebb and wane within him; his creation, full and powerful, the first time he realized Megatron was his future, the sound of feet rapidly approaching down a hallway. None of it meant anything to Ultra Magnus and yet, as if Shockwave’s mind were his own dreamscape, it all fit into reality as clearly and unquestionably as the rotation of the moons. He was sure something similar was filtering through himself into his partner, but whatever it was remained a mystery as Shockwave merely sighed, softly, romantically.

His overload was a wave, slow and salted, and he felt himself not riding it but pulled under. His vision, already having such difficulty remaining online, glitched badly for a moment, freezing on several concurrent images in the stream of Shockwave’s life that flashed through him, optics, mouths, hands that were not his own on hands that were not ones he recognized. It was as if his own spark cut out mid beat, everything inside himself dropping down through Cybertron’s core like lead in the sea.

Then it ended.

Shockwave rolled off him, onto the floor, though he caught himself smoothly, dragging his limp arms like a ball and chain to the chair he had previously occupied. Ultra Magnus was almost ashamed of how he pitied him. He pitied himself worse, though, and that was the greater sin.

First Aid burst into the room.

“What’s going on! What happened?”

Shockwave looked up, not exactly shocked, still shaking a bit as his cooling fans thrummed. Ultra Magnus did nothing, still trapped in the tremors of his receding overload. It was not pleasure, but it was not bad either. He quite liked the warm pool of nothing he felt.

Nonplussed by their silence, yet still somewhat reminded of his place beside the Decepticon, First Aid regrouped internally, tapping his data pad.

“There were large spikes in spark activity in here. They seem to be closer to normal now but we really need to make sure everything is working correctly.”

Clearly no pleased that he had to speak to him, he turned to Shockwave, jittering.

“y-you don’t know what happened? Were you harassing him?”

“Yes.”

Shockwave straightened. First Aid was taken aback.

“You were harassing him?”

“In a sense.”

“Did you hurt him?”

“No.”

First Aid stared a moment, between them, then realization dawned.

“Oh.”

“Hmm.”

“O-oh. I’m sorry?”

“Is that a question, First Aid?”

Ultra Magnus finally lifted his head, sighing lowly. The medic almost flinched.

“No, uh, sir. Are you alright, sir?”

He nodded, taken by exhaustion. Of course he was not, not really, but for all intents and purposes he was alive. Shockwave watched him.

“Well, if you’re, um, sure.”

He backed out of the room very quickly, the sound of his escape reaching them for several nano-kliks after he had vanished. Shockwave leaned back in his seat, the small chair made to bear weight much less than his creaking in upset.

That he would perish before Shockwave was simple fact. Autobots were not meant to live as long as their weaponized counterparts and he was already very old, even if Shockwave was technically older. Inside his closed chest his spark bobbed slowly, wisps of Shockwave’s essence left tangled within it, and it hurt, and his stomach and arm and face hurt, but he was alive. Shockwave had not killed him yet, and neither had the rest of their world. He would live on, and that was enough.

Besides, when the pain did take him, it would be one last blow to the mech who he loathed the most. The thought had him drift into recharge with a smile, and Shockwave, by the window, felt the tips of his claws grow cold and shivered.


End file.
